A Message For My Lover
by Liv Wilder
Summary: Set during 4x19: "47 Seconds." Goes AU after Castle overhears Beckett tell Bobby Lopez, "I was shot in the chest and I remember every second of it."
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: This is what happens when you leave BBC Radio 4 playing in the background: you hear programs you hadn't planned on listening to and you learn about interesting things you'd never heard of before._

 _This story is set during 4x19: "47 Seconds." It takes an AU turn after Castle overhears Beckett say, "I was shot in the chest and I remember every second of it," while she's interrogating Bobby Lopez._

* * *

 _A Message for My Lover_

 _Chapter 1_

It was about the size of a phone booth, a quaint novelty sitting in the back corner of the _Songbyrd Music House and Record Café_ in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington DC. A vintage, not to mention beautifully restored, _Voice-O-Graph_ recording booth that would have looked right at home in a dusty old arcade or on some salt-encrusted seaside pier. And it was calling to Richard Castle like a grilled cheese sandwich on a cold winter's day.

But first to set the scene…

Two takeout cups of coffee, one sheet of mirrored glass between them, and what felt like a thousand years of waiting, wishing and wanting, all about to be rewarded. They were definitely on the cusp of a new future. Together. Just clear this case and he'd make sure it happened. The timing was right. He could feel it in his gut. No more waiting.

He stood at the glass, watching, listening intently, nodding along. Actually, more like captivated. He was so impressed by her, still, utterly mesmerized. She _owned_ that interrogation space, could work a suspect or a reluctant witness like no other cop in the building. He'd never tire of watching her work.

But his smile faded that day when he heard Kate give up her secret, out of the blue, and to a perp no less: a total stranger she was hard-knuckle interrogating up against a terrifying time crunch. Out it came, so easy, like it was nothing to her to show this guy her scars. We all lose our cool sometimes, but when this truth came surging out, Castle felt like he was the one who'd just been gutted, worked over. She'd had so many opportunities – big and small, scary and intimate – in which to tell him the truth, and yet she chose this one, to tell a stranger. Her crystal clear memory of his love mixed up with her anger and then vomited across the floor of the Interrogation Room 1 without any thought to feelings or consequence.

After all these months of tiptoeing and working hard to earn her trust again, that was how she had played it, and so he set down those cups of coffee and he left. Not just the precinct. Because his mother was right: love was not a switch you could just turn off. No, he called Paula, got her to arrange some meetings he'd been putting off and to put out feelers for a couple of last minute signings with a few independent bookstores who were always glad of a celebrity face to bump sales, and then he went home to the loft to throw some clothes in a bag.

By the time he got to Penn Station it was late afternoon. Paula had reserved a seat in business class on the 5pm Amtrak to D.C. He'd be there before eight. His phone already declared two missed calls. He turned it off and sat staring out the window for the best part of three hours, seeing very little as the landscape flew by and he erased an entire fantasy future in the space of 175 minutes. A life unlived and now lost, spooled out like an old reel-to-reel tape to the accompanying click-clack soundtrack of the Acela Express, his grief punctuated now and then by the mournful sounding of the train's horn. If that sounds cornball, that's what it was. He couldn't have written it more tragically himself.

* * *

The next day, he met with a soon-to-be retired ATF Agent at the Bureau's Washington field office on H Street NW. He had an idea for a new character. He had several, in fact, though none of them clamored with loud clear voices in his head in the way that Nikki Heat had done the day after he'd set eyes on Detective Kate Beckett and the whole path of his life had changed. But in time, that would come. He just couldn't force it, not even if his survival instinct urged him to.

The Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms offered a lot of scope to a writer like him. Plenty of room for new adventures, maybe even set overseas. He hoped the Special Agent couldn't detect the weight like jet lag that dampened his spirit and blunted his enthusiasm that day. Their talk was useful, instructive, though some of his questions were dull, lacking his usual precision and dogged curiosity. He'd have to email follow-ups to secure more juicy detail when he eventually got his head on straight. When that would be, he didn't know.

Not for the first time, as he left the field office, he began questioning what he'd heard through that one-way glass. Could he have misunderstood? Gotten the wrong end of the stick? Did remembering every second mean she remembered him...his words? How would she even know if she'd forgotten any of it? That would be the point - you can't know or remember that which you've already forgotten. He wanted his bud of a theory to be true, but in his heart he suspected that she hadn't missed a beat. This was Kate Beckett, after all.

Between his meeting with S.A. Snedeker and a hastily arranged signing at five, Castle had some time to kill. The independent bookstore, aptly named " _Idle Time Books_ ," was located in the culturally diverse neighborhood of Adams Morgan in Northwest Washington, DC. So he took a short cab ride, and he walked the streets to get a feel for the place. His cell phone rang just as he was cruising, on foot, past the bookstore window, surreptitiously inspecting the freshly-printed posters spaced across the glass. The familiar Black Pawn-branded artwork came courtesy of a digital file Paula had the in-house graphic designer email to small independents with limited digital facilities of their own. He stared at his own face and his face stared back at him, the smile accusatory in its confident cheerfulness with that casual, direct gaze that now appeared to taunt or mock. It seemed to say, "How did you let this get so far out of hand? This is your fault, Rick. Fix it or walk away for good because we are done living in limbo." He shook his head to clear the critical drone of his own thoughts and turned way.

In that same instant, when Beckett's face swam to the surface of his cell phone screen, he closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. "Accept" or "Decline." Those choices seemed to carry an import that went far beyond the mere answering or ignoring of a phone call. Unable to outright reject his erstwhile partner, he opted to turn his phone off for an hour or so and go find someplace close by to have lunch. He couldn't deal with any of this on an empty stomach, and so this was how he ended up at the _Songbyrd Music House and Record Café_ on 18th Street NW on that warm Washington DC afternoon.

* * *

After a smoked turkey sandwich washed down by a bottle of original recipe Coca Cola imported from Mexico, the lure of the Voice-O-Graph booth in the back corner of the bar became too much. It was a gadget essentially, a throwback, an antique, and like their long-ago visit to Drake's Magic Shop with its Zoltar fortune telling machine, it dredged up precious memories of happier times working Beckett-flavored cases with his partner. The recording booth spoke to the nostalgic in him, it appealed to his inner child, it whispered to the romantic he was at heart, broken or not. He wished more than anything that she was here. To share. He could help none of it.

For fifteen bucks he was handed a key and a special token giving him 190 seconds of recording time all to himself. 3 minutes and 10 seconds in which to say something meaningful to the world. Or to his family. Most people came in here to sing a song or recite poetry; often to record a message for loved ones. So why was it that thoughts of Kate Beckett were all that would fill Richard Castle's head?

Once seated inside the booth, he cleared his throat and wiped his clammy palms on his jeans. The red light flickered on after he dropped the token into the slot, and the instruction panel illuminated on the screen. The time until the mic went live began to count down while he watched in fascination as the blank vinyl disc was lifted and then placed onto the turntable beyond the glass viewing window. He took a deep breath that was supposed to be calming but ended up coming out shaky. The needle dropped and the next sign lit up, telling him that the recording was live and he could begin talking into the microphone. His mind was all over the place, so he said the first words that came into his head. He spoke as if talking directly to her, forgetting time and distance.

"Kate, hi. It's…it's me, Castle. So this is kind of weird. Talking to you from a vintage recording booth in DC." He shrugged to himself as if she could see him. "But me and weird, huh? You'd probably say they make a perfect match."

He laughed quietly until the sound and the emotion shriveled up, and he inwardly cringed at his own awkwardness. A dry mouth made this serious, as did the loss of precious seconds with nothing momentous yet etched in vinyl. This was a lot harder than it looked. How on earth did they do this during the war when it really counted?

He cleared his throat and tried to lubricate his parched tongue before it stuck to the roof of his mouth.

"Look, I'm sorry I left without saying goodbye. Things just got too…weird before." He coughed, bone jarringly nervous. "So, anyway, big dramatic subject change coming up." He made the sound of a drumroll and then felt like a total idiot. But what did it matter? She didn't love him anyway.

"Yeah, this is seriously hard to do. Don't ever let anyone tell you it's not. And I'm not even singing." He chuckled, and it sounded horribly hollow. "They actually have an acoustic guitar you can use...so...you'd probably sing if you were here. I'd love to hear you sing again. Beckett, why do you never sing?"

"Get a grip, Rick," he muttered to himself, hoping the microphone wouldn't pick that up. He needed to stop rambling. The timer was running down.

He rubbed his face, trying to scrub away the nerves that were paralyzing him. "So…I don't know if you heard me the first time. I…I think you did…that's my instinct. Only I'm not clear why you won't admit it to me. Anyway, here goes nothing. At least this is being recorded. You…uh…you won't be able to deny you heard me this—"

He broke off abruptly, sitting bolt upright on the stool, boots scraping on the bottom of the scuffed booth floor as he pulled his feet underneath him.

"Oh, screw it," he muttered, the fingers of one hand raking furrows through his hair. "Who am I kidding? I sound like I'm trying to persuade you, which I'm _not._ This'll probably never see the light of day anyway. It's just driving me crazy not knowing whether you heard me that day or not. And now I'm in a strange bar, in the middle of the day, talking to myself. Excellent! I might actually be losing my mind. If you ever hear this, please tell Alexis that I love her and that I was legally sane once upon a time." He laughed a little maniacally, undercutting his previous pronouncement, before quickly sobering up again.

His wittering stopped momentarily, the booth fell unearthly silent except for the tick-tick of the turntable gently rotating. Castle took another steadying breath, desperately trying to add more hope to his voice when he plunged back in. Like a shot of vitamin C to ward off a cold, this was a shot of courage to fend off a broken heart for all time. He thought it'd be easier to do this if he wasn't looking right at her. Turned out any way was hard when you'd had your heart broken.

"God, I need to do this," he said, hurrying the words now. "Look, Kate, I love you. I need you to know that. I've loved you for a long time, and now I don't know how to tell you again. Kind of lost hope after my first dramatic shot at spilling my heart fell on deaf ears. Seemed like sitting you down over a burger and fries wouldn't have quite the same impact. Not after I held you on the grass that day…not even…"

He watched the stopwatch count down on his cell phone screen, and his chest tightened, his heart thundering beneath his ribcage. The illuminated sign warning him, ' _You still have thirty seconds to go,'_ lit up.

His voice cracked. "But now I think maybe it's time I let you go," he blurted, the idea completely unplanned. Horrifying. "Always thought that cliché about if you love someone blah blah…you know the one. Well, now I think it's time I try that route. Staying by your side is too painful for me, and maybe I'm enabling some status quo between us. I don't know. I just…I still love you. No matter what. I still feel as strongly as—"

And then the recording light went dark, and his old brass token tinkled as it dropped down into the collection box like a lucky penny tossed into a wishing well. He was all out of time. The needle lifted and the polyvinyl disc moved off to one side. When indicated to do so, he opened a drawer in front of him and a paper sleeve was dispensed. The 7-inch vinyl record then fell down another glass-fronted slot and he opened the hatch to retrieve his recording. Carefully, he slid one inside the other; a cheap novelty he could slip into the back of a drawer just as easily and forget all about.

When he stepped out of the booth and checked his watch, just seven minutes had passed between dropping his token in the slot and receiving his recording. Seven minutes that might prove to be the most important of his life, though he didn't know it then.

* * *

 _Note: The Voice-O-Graph, which allowed people to record their own voices direct to disc, was once a staple of fairgrounds, game arcades, tourist attractions and the like. Most famously, there was one on the 86th-floor observation deck of the Empire State Building. You would step inside, pop coins (35 cents in '47) into the slot, and deliver your own 65-second song, poem or message of undying love; the machine would then feed it out on a 6-inch disc that could be mailed to friends or relatives, who could listen to it on their home record players. Though it first saw widespread use during World War II, when soldiers and their loved ones communicated via Voice-O-Graph. – An extract taken from Wandering Sound's, "A Brief History of the Voice-O-Graph."_


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Apologies for the delay. My writing time is limited these days. This story will be four chapters in all. The other two are written and just need to be edited._

 _The story shifts backwards to Kate's perspective in this chapter._

* * *

A Message for My Lover

Chapter 2

When Beckett emerged from interrogation, the information she needed from Bobby Lopez was still as elusive as ever. Despite all the pressure she'd piled on and everything she'd thrown at him, she was still missing some critical detail.

When she got back to her desk, she wondered at the still-warm to-go cup of coffee she found sitting there. Coffee but no Castle. What was that about? Esposito stopped by to clear the mystery up for her – the writer had been in earlier but then he said he had somewhere else to be and he left. Caught up in the case, Kate had no time to ponder where that somewhere else might be since a long list of more urgent matters vied for her attention. But what lingered longer, like a film of dried salt on her skin making it tight and uncomfortable, was her disappointment that her partner wasn't there to work the case with her.

After a couple of hours, when Castle failed to return to the precinct, she phoned him. But his number rang out, her call going unanswered, and something uneasy began to stir in her gut. Ryan and Esposito went out to fetch dinner, and she sat facing the murder board alone, reviewing every detail of the timeline, isolating every blank or missing fact and adding it to an ever growing list. Castle's absence gnawed away at her. But it never occurred to her for a second that she might be the cause of his sudden departure.

In her mind, she was dealing with her issues. So she had thrown the lie she'd told Castle in Bobby Lopez' face without a second thought, because to her it wasn't important. It didn't even feel like a lie anymore. She was fixing it, they were getting closer everyday. That was all the proof she needed. The topic of her shooting was no longer a live hand grenade waiting to explode in her face. She had cleared the air with her partner and stated her intentions – albeit vaguely – the day, months ago, when they had reconciled on the swings. And every day since, she'd been putting in the work, both by herself and with Dr Burke, trying to get herself ready for what she considered to be the second half of her life. The half of her life where she intended to have all the things everyone else took for granted – a partner, a family, a social life…heck, a few hobbies, maybe even kids and a dog one day. She wanted it all. And she wanted it with him.

The part she forgot in all of this, was that her partner remained out of the loop, excluded from her wistful imaginings of their future life together. That was a key flaw in her plan. If she truly wanted a life with Richard Castle, she'd have to learn to let him in, to talk to him, to share her hope and her fears. Instead of leaving him in the dark, watching his own dream of "someday" fade to black.

That night, Kate spent restless hours tossing and turning. She had called her partner a second time and left him a text message, but still she'd received no reply. The urgency of the bombing case forced her into work early the next morning without any time for a detour to her partner's apartment. But by the end of a second distracted shift, Esposito had firmly suggested she cut out early to check up on the writer and to put her own mind at ease.

* * *

"Alexis!"

Surprise was written on the faces of both women the moment the front door opened and they saw one another. Kate felt her courage falter. On the way over, she had built herself up to confront Castle, to demand to know what he was hiding from. Dealing with his daughter was a whole different matter. She wasn't sure she was ready for that.

"Is…is your dad here?" Kate asked. She glanced past the redhead and then back at her face when she couldn't see any evidence of her partner in the strip of living room that was visible through the partially open front door.

Alexis frowned. "He—" She gave her head a little shake. "Detective Beckett, my dad's in D.C. right now."

Kate bit her lip and flexed the fingers of both hands in and out of fists inside her coat pockets. The knot in her gut drew tighter. She didn't know what to say to that. Whatever this was was obviously a lot trickier than she had imagined.

"I…assume from your expression that you didn't know?" Alexis said.

Kate shook her head. Disappointment settled in her chest like a foundation stone. She'd come over here hoping to see him, hoping to put the mystery of his disappearing act from the precinct, not to mention the unanswered phone calls (now tallying an embarrassing five) to bed. Instead, there was just this: more mystery and having to rely on a teenager who didn't like her very much for answers.

She jumped when Alexis reached out and touched her elbow. The girl immediately held up her hands and took a step back. "Hey, sorry…" The hallway felt cold, the air seeming to moving around them while they both stood frozen. "Would you like to come in?" Alexis finally asked.

Kate was reluctant. If Castle wasn't there, what would be the point? Four years in and his daughter was still calling her "Detective," so it's not as if the girl saw her as a friend she would confide in, much as she would have hoped for that by now.

Alexis cocked her head. "Kate? Are you okay?"

The girl's gentle use of her first name was the kindness that swung it in the end. She raised a cautious smile for her partner's daughter and rocked back on her heels. "Thank you. I would like that. Just for a moment, though. I don't want to…to disturb you…" She babbled a little as Alexis led her inside.

The loft looked just as it always did to Kate – warm, stylish, spotless, inviting. Above all, it looked like a family home. She gravitated towards the kitchen, since that's where she'd usually be if Castle were here.

Alexis circled around behind her, reappearing on the business side of the island. "Can I get you coffee? My dad says you love coffee."

Kate released a breathy laugh and dipped her head as she laid her hands flat on the counter. "Yeah. I'm not sure if that's maybe just a cop thing. I picked up the habit in the Academy to help me stay awake when I was studying. Later, I got hooked sitting in a patrol car for hours at a time. Don't get hooked," she advised Alexis, smiling. "But, yeah, I do love my coffee," she admitted. "Your dad's not wrong there."

Alexis began to fill the machine. "My dad loves it, too. He's a real grouch first thing if he doesn't get…" She trailed off with a nervous shrug. "Well, you know that already, I'm sure. You've seen him all hours of the day and night."

Her statement, while true, was also delivered with a certain stiff restraint that Kate didn't like for how it hinted at some rivalry between the two of them. Some rivalry for Castle's affection and attention, perhaps, that in Kate's mind did not exist. But she wasn't so old that she couldn't remember the prism through which teenagers, girls in particular, viewed life; how things could easily become distorted, even inside one's own head.

So Kate nodded. "He keeps us both well topped up. It's the only way to stay sane some days. And warm," she added, "when you're out on the street on a winter's morning." Mentally, she shook herself for talking so much nonsense. But the silence between them was making her nervous, and so she felt an uncharacteristic need to fill the void with chatter. Usually, that would be Castle's job. More and more, when he wasn't around, she realized how often she relied on him without even thinking about it anymore. She hated the idea that she might have taken him for granted, too.

* * *

Finally, Kate's coffee was ready. Alexis helped herself to a bottle of water from the fridge, and they both took seats at the counter. Kate sipped her coffee for a few moments, taking the time to figure out the questions she wanted to ask before she started talking. For some reason she felt she'd only get one shot at securing the information she needed to find her partner without spooking his daughter too much.

"So…" She frowned and ran the tip of her finger around the circumference of the mug, stalling a second or two longer. She cleared her throat to break the silence. "So you said that your dad is in D.C. When did he leave? Do you know?"

"Yes. He left late yesterday afternoon. I got a text around five. I think he came home and packed kind of quickly."

A chill ran down Kate's spine. She took another sip of coffee to mask it. "What makes you think he left quickly?" she asked as lightly as she could.

"He left a drawer open in his bedroom and there were socks lying on the floor." She stared at Kate, her eyes kind of narrowed. "You really didn't know?"

Kate shook her head. "No. Can I ask, did his text explain _why_ he went? I mean was it a planned trip he maybe forgot to mention?"

If it were possible, Alexis' face got paler. "Kate, should I be worried? Is something wrong with my dad?" The girl's voice rose, and Kate had to quell her own fear in order to reassure the teen. The last thing she wanted was to make Alexis panic, and Castle would expect her to shield his daughter from bad news in any case.

"No, look, I'm sure he's fine—" She forced a smile.

"Did you guys have a fight?" Alexis blurted.

Kate closed her eyes. "No, Alexis. No fight. In fact, he brought me coffee and then he told Esposito that he had somewhere important to be. I'm sure he just forgot to tell me his plans or something. So…the text? Do you still have it?"

Alexis nodded rapidly, and then she slid down off her stool to run upstairs to fetch her cell phone.

While the girl was gone, Kate hurried in to Castle's office to see if he'd left anything obvious lying out on the desktop. She wouldn't snoop in his drawers, but anything left in plain sight was fair game, she reasoned. She shook her head, reminding herself that this was not some illegal search she was executing. She had been invited in. And she needed to stop following that line of thinking, too. Castle wasn't a case and he wasn't a missing person. He had a busy life and he didn't share every detail of it with her, much as she wanted him to.

But even as she told herself this, she knew that she was lying. She was worried. Something was definitely up.

* * *

" _Kate?_ " She heard Alexis call out her name a minute or so later.

"Yeah, just coming." She turned quickly, hitting her hip on the edge of the desk. She had to stifle a hiss of pain by stuffing her knuckles into her mouth.

When she emerged from Castle's office, she found Alexis standing in the middle of the living room floor looking for her.

"You were in my dad's office?" Castle's daughter wasn't smiling.

Kate attempted to smother the blush of guilt warming her cheeks. "I just like to see where he works," she lied. "Don't tell him. I'll never hear the end of it."

"Sure," Alexis said, but the girl eyed her dubiously.

Eventually, she held out her phone. Kate took it and quickly began scrolling over the text Castle had sent his daughter.

The one she'd received just after five o'clock the evening before read:

 _Hey, Pumpkin. Had to take a last minute trip down to D.C. Got a meeting early tomorrow and a couple book signings lined up. Shouldn't be gone more than a few days. Will call later. Love, dad x_

"I called him while he was still on the train," Alexis explained, "but the cell reception was terrible. He never called me back." The girl handed her phone back to Kate to show her another text she'd received that morning.

The second text read:

 _Sorry I couldn't talk last night, Alexis. Staying at the Kimpton Hotel if you need me. Hope you're okay. Off to a meeting with a Special Agent this morning. ;) Will try to call later. Love, dad x_

Kate read and then reread the second text message, trying to parse her partner's words for hidden meaning or a clue as to his state of mind.

"The weird thing was," Alexis said when Kate finally returned her phone, "he sent me some MP3 file last night."

Beckett was still hung up on the words 'special agent,' so it took her a moment to react to what Alexis had just said. "Sorry. Did you just say that he sent you an MP3 file?"

Alexis nodded. "Yeah, or some _bar_ in D.C. did. _The Record Café_ or something. I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet. I think it was sent to both of us. Probably the Cloud again. That's been happening a lot lately: files just appearing in my music app or in my pictures folder. I'm not even sure it was meant for me."

Kate had never trusted the goddamn Cloud. If she couldn't see it, she wasn't going to faithfully dump her personal data in there. Clouds were made of water vapour; tiny droplets so small they floated on air. That didn't sound like a secure data storage facility to her, and she'd told Castle as much when he'd lost a bunch of photos not six months ago. He had laughed at her, as usual, likening her mistrust of the technology to her lack of belief in magic or the universe. She had responded with "my point exactly" and a roll of her eyes. Now, more than anything, she wished that he was here so she could tell him "I told you so," and then watch him laugh at her some more.

It would be another couple of days before she would get anything close to that opportunity. She'd pay almost anything to have him standing in his living room laughing at her right now.

"I'll get my laptop," Alexis said, turning to run for the stairs. "I think it's time we found out what's on that file," she called over her shoulder.

Kate waited in the kitchen this time, wholly unaware how her life was about to change.


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: Thank you for staying with this story. If you need a refresher on Castle's recording, it's in Chapter 1._

* * *

A Message for My Lover

Chapter 3

After a successful book signing at _Idle Time Books_ , Castle wandered the streets of Adams Morgan until he hit Connecticut Avenue, and then he made his way slowly back towards Dupont Circle where his hotel was located.

As he walked, he mulled over the problem that had driven him here: Detective Kate Beckett.

Perfectly imperfect, that was what he'd come to believe this woman to be over the years he'd spent shadowing her. He forgave her a lot because of her past – her need for control had been there from the start, a product of the devastation that had wrecked her family the night the police came to their door to inform Kate and her father that her mother was gone and she wouldn't ever be coming home again. There were no worse scenarios than that one.

He made allowances for her insistence on space; a by-product of the same vein of self-protection, he understood. The spikiness and the criticism he could live with since he'd earned a lot of it anyway. The sometimes impossibly high standards she held herself and her team to were more of a plus than a minus; she'd certainly made him a better man and a better writer. Her unwillingness to talk about anything personal was probably the major thing that had held them back. Everyone had flaws, but Kate's failure to communicate with him on a personal level had gradually become more and more self-defeating. Until here they were.

The one thing that hurt Castle more than anything, was the way Kate held him at arm's length when she seemed, at times, perfectly willing to allow other men into her private life and her bed. Since he'd started caring, falling for her really, watching her be with other people while still relying so heavily on him for some things…that cut him to the core. It made him feel as if he wasn't good enough in a lot of respects, while perfectly useful in others. He just hadn't been able to tell her any of these things, a failure for which he understood he shared some blame.

But in all the time he'd known her, and in all the hours he'd spent working alongside her, he'd never had her pegged as a coward before, and he'd never imagined her as cruel. Yesterday's performance in interrogation had changed that view.

* * *

Later that night, after a miserable, tasteless, room service dinner, Castle lay in the unfamiliar bed in his hotel room mulling these thoughts over.

 _"If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they're yours; if they don't they never were,"_ Richard Bach, the American writer, was reputed to have said.

Or was that whole idea just B.S.? And was that really what he was doing here anyway? Or was he actually running away instead because he was in pain and too afraid to confront Kate with the difficult questions that would force them to finally face the truth they'd been long avoiding? Was his fear of her answer to one particular question driving him away from her when he should really be moving closer, getting up in her face and demanding to know why she had repeatedly lied to him?

Around three he growled into the darkness of the stuffy hotel room and threw back the covers. Sleep was not coming tonight. He made coffee with the fancy pod machine in the corner, and then he sat by the window staring out at the traffic down on Dupont Circle, glittering like a diamond tennis bracelet on an elegant wrist.

Unbeknown to Castle, Kate was awake, too. Huddled in a wool blanket in her apartment in New York, with her feet drawn up on a chair, she sat at her desk with her laptop open in front of her. Alexis had reluctantly agreed to forward the MP3 file by email. But only after Kate had reminded her that a) the message was addressed to Kate herself and b) she had already listened to its contents. So the cat was effectively out of the bag. She also promised to take the blame if her dad was upset.

Now, she sat amidst the blue halo cast by her computer screen, listening to Castle's voice on repeat. She had laughed and she had cried at some of the things he had said. The halting, unprepared speech was muffled and full of hisses and crackles caused by the old recording technology. But somehow it seemed more sincere and authentic for these homespun effects. The passion behind his words was so obviously unrehearsed. He had spoken off the cuff as though sitting right in front of her. She wondered if he had meant it when he said that she was never intended to listen to any of his rambling confession. It pained her to think so. At least now she knew why he had taken off for D.C. when he had. But to believe that he should let her go? And to think that he was the one holding them back, maintaining them in some unwanted status quo by remaining by her side? No! He couldn't be more wrong.

* * *

By the time she caught up with him, four days had passed since they had last seen one another. The very fact that she missed him so much was deeply telling. She decided this was a lesson she would take on board for once, instead of stuffing the feeling so deep inside that it disappeared for good into that emotional black hole of hers.

He was crossing the street from the entrance to his hotel when Kate spotted him. The traffic was so bad that there was no way to get to him without waiting for the lights to change and then simply running to catch up. She was out of breath when she finally yelled his name.

Castle stopped walking. More froze, actually, before he slowly turned around. He stared at her, so out of place, so unexpected. "Beckett, what are you doing here?" Concern flared in his eyes a heartbeat later. "Is Alexis okay?"

Kate held up both hands, palms facing him, placating. "Alexis is fine."

He pulled out his cell phone and glanced at the screen, checking for missed messages no doubt. "It's not my mother? Is she sick?"

Kate wished that Castle wouldn't instantly reach for the worse case scenario. This reaction was a painful reminder of the price that he had paid for being around her; he was no longer the optimistic, happy-go-lucky man she had first met. But then she supposed spending so much time mulling over death with her and the boys had him expecting the worst by now. It was a casualty of the job – peace of mind. They all suffered from it: a kind of hypervigilance, coupled with a propensity to expect the worst from situations. They'd all seen too much. She had robbed him of his innocence. It was time to give back.

She tried to smile, but her face muscles felt stiff. "Martha's fine, too. Everyone is fine," she reassured him.

"Then I don't understand." His brow knit tight. "Why are you here?" He was looking behind her for some reason, over her shoulder, searching for an explanation to a puzzle he couldn't fathom with just Kate standing there alone in front of him. "Do you have a case in D.C.?"

"No. I'm not here for work. I came to see you," she said.

The look of cold suspicion on his face was unnerving. He wasn't exactly pleased to see her and he wasn't going to make this easy, either. "Me? Why?"

Kate glanced at the ground. "Look, I know it's maybe a shock, me just showing up like this. But I'm sure, if you take a minute, you can figure out why."

She watched as Castle sighed in frustration and his eyes rolled skyward. She wasn't playing games, but it looked as if Castle believed that that was what was going on here; that she was stringing him along.

"I honestly have no idea what would bring you down here looking for me," he said. He sounded hoarse and exhausted, and he looked about as tense as Kate felt. "Did I commit some crime I'm not aware of? Are you here to execute a warrant, Detective?"

The longer he spoke, the harder he looked and the colder he sounded. If his last remark was meant as a joke, it was clear that neither of them found it funny.

Finally, Kate broke eye contact, and she glanced down at the ground again. Their shoes looked funny standing facing one another. If you looked only at their feet, you'd maybe assume that they were close, given the proximity of their bodies to one another. But as she looked up, Castle took a step back, away from her. It was almost as if he had read her mind. That hurt more than it should, and she had to fight the urge to turn tail just to force out the words, "Castle, I listened to the recording you made."

She watched these words sink in, slowly followed by their implication. A little after that came the incredulity, followed closely by the questions.

"What? _How?_ " He glanced down at the messenger bag hanging from his shoulder. His fingers spread and his palm pressed down on the leather flap, protectively. From this tell she assumed that the original vinyl record was secreted somewhere inside. "How could you possibly have—"

"I went looking for you at the loft when you wouldn't answer any of my calls."

Castle shrugged away his discomfort at being confronted. "And?"

"And Alexis let me in."

He stiffened at this news. His features hardened again and his expression seemed strained. Normally there to supervise any meeting between his daughter and the detective, Kate suspected he was worried by the thought of them spending time alone together without him as buffer or referee. "How was she?" he asked a little formally.

"She wasn't rude to me, if that's what you're worried about. Actually, it was kind of nice." Kate smiled. "We had coffee…and we chatted a little." She watched for his reaction when she said, "Then she told me about an MP3 file some D.C. music venue had uploaded to both of you."

Castle's face went redder than she'd ever seen it go before. No matter the gaffs he'd been caught in over the last four years, he'd never looked so embarrassed.

"I thought the digital copy of that recording only went to _my_ account," he said almost to himself.

"The Cloud…apparently." Kate shrugged. She had to fight the urge to laugh because she was fairly certain Castle wasn't up for jokes at this point. "Alexis got a copy, too."

He cursed, and then he took a breath and refocused on Kate. "So, you…you…"

Kate watched him flounder for a second and then she put him out of his misery. "I heard the recording. All of it."

"Did…Alexis?" He swallowed hard.

Kate shook her head. "When she heard it was addressed to me, she asked me to stop it so that she could leave the room."

"My God, _you_ weren't even—"

"Supposed to hear it. Yeah, I guessed as much." She tucked her hair behind her ear and then crossed her arms over her stomach.

"So then why did you listen?" he asked.

"Castle, you were clearly talking to me. I didn't know what was on there at first, and more importantly, I didn't know where _you_ were. I was worried about you. You took off so suddenly. Not a word to anyone. I needed a…a clue."

"And now I'm sure you've figured it out. Why I had to leave. So…" He shrugged. "Why are you even here?"

"God, you can be dense sometimes." Her frustration with both of them was getting the better of her. She flipped her head away and then turned back to him. Her hair danced around her shoulders and whipped across her face.

"Excuse me?" Castle exclaimed.

"That message? I don't want you to let me go, Castle. That's the _last_ thing I want. All this time, I thought we both understood that we were waiting until I was better. But I'm sorry if that wasn't clear. I can see how you might have doubted me."

"You heard me that day," he stated simply, fury hardening his jaw. His eyes were flinty, too.

She nodded and a cracked, " _Yes,_ " choked out. Guilt paled her skin and pinched her cheeks.

"Why? So why lie to me? One word and I would have left you alone. But why lie _all this time_?"

"I didn't want you to leave me. Not forever. I guess I was buying myself time."

"And _I_ paid the price," he said, slapping his hand against his chest.

"It's not like I planned it," she promised.

"Ah, so spur of the moment makes it better?" His mockery turned to anger. "You've had _months_ to come clean, Kate."

"Yes, and I am so sorry, Castle. I couldn't deal with anything back then. So when you asked in the hospital, I took the easiest route out. I was in no shape to face questions or any expectations there might have been..."

He frowned, not understanding. "Expectations?"

"Who'd want the broken girl? Hmm? The fixated screw up with a target on her back and a permanently disfigured body?"

Castle looked appalled by this summation. "Do you think so little of me?"

"No, of course not. It wasn't even really about you. I thought I was doing you a favour, letting you off the hook."

"Beckett, I've never been that shallow. _Ever._ "

"I know." She put her face in her hands for a second and then she raked her fingers through her hair. "I just needed to be able to breathe and for my brain to shut the hell up so I could think clearly. Just for a moment."

"What couldn't you deal with?"

" _Everything!_ I was broken. _They_ finally broke me. You were there…you know what I was dealing with. Montgomery, then Evelyn, Josh, my mom… _us_ …and that was _before_ the shooting."

"You kicked me out, Kate. Said we were over."

"We hurt each other. You scare me sometimes, Castle. A lot of the time, actually."

"Why on earth would—"

"Because you're more honest than I am. You share what you feel. You say what you think. And I know that being around me has stopped you from doing that. And I'm sorry. You've made me better, more open. I hate to think I've made you less honest."

People and traffic moved all around them. They were two fixed points, but the geometry felt all wrong, the streets too broad. They were too far from home and the people that they loved. It left them rudderless.

"If you needed a moment why take three months?" he asked.

"Ever been trapped by a lie? But then I thought we'd dealt with this, put it behind us."

" _When?!_ We never talk about this stuff."

"That day on the swings," Kate said.

Castle laughed bitterly. "You mean the day you vaguely hinted that I might be your guy? _Someday._ "

"Yes," she whispered, raising her eyes to him, pleading. "I thought you understood."

"So did I, and then I heard you the other day, and…well, here we are." He raised his hand and let it fall back to his side, slapping hard against his thigh.

"I hate that I've hurt you, Castle. More than anything I regret that," she told him sincerely. "I just needed time. But I handled things badly. I hope you can understand that some day."

Castle paused for a long moment, his eyes trained over her shoulder again, staring into the distance, and then he nodded sharply as if to acknowledge her apology. Finally, he straightened up, pulling himself back together, and his gaze landed on her once more. "I have a signing to go to," he said gruffly.

Kate blinked hard, unsure she'd heard him correctly. She quickly recovered. "Sure. I have work, too…so…" She thumbed over her shoulder, not sure where she was indicating other than backwards.

"You heading back to New York?" He almost sounded disappointed. Kate took this as a positive sign and clung to it.

"Yeah. Gates would only give me the day." She swiped at her cheek and sniffed. "Sorry I can't stay longer."

"No, yeah, thanks for coming down," Castle mumbled, like a mourner at a funeral receiving condolences from a distant acquaintance.

"Right. So, you'll think about what I said?" Kate asked, finding his eyes one more time and holding onto his gaze. "Please don't walk away now. We were so close."

The atmosphere was horribly awkward. It was as if their anchor line had snapped and they had been cut adrift from one another. A gulf had opened up and it was rapidly getting bigger.

Castle nodded. "I will. But no promises," he said curtly.

"No, of course not," Kate quietly agreed, though her disappointment was on full audio-visual display. "Good luck with the signing," she added pointlessly, before finally turning to walk away, feeling as if she was in shock.


	4. Chapter 4

A Message for My Lover

Chapter 4

The train ride back to New York passed in a blur of unseen landscape and life's mess on a constant, upsetting loop. Kate took a cab directly from Penn Station to the precinct. Once there she put in the best part of a half-day's shift. No point sitting at home moping. Work had always been a constant for her; even in the worst of times it had carried her through with its demand that she focus. Today was no different, she needed its rigours to hold her up. Because she really had no idea when or even if Castle would come back to her. A part of her wanted to delay the inevitable for as long as possible, especially if it meant that he was leaving for good. So her job was a perfect forest to hide in, even if she did stray off the path now and again to think of him.

The boys didn't ask where she had disappeared to for more than half the day, and they pretended not to notice how sad and distracted she appeared, for which she was very grateful. Even Gates stayed away. She popped her head out of her office once, staring in surprise upon finding her best detective back on duty not twelve hours after she had requested a full day's leave. But for once she disappeared back inside her office without asking any awkward questions.

Kate finally left the precinct for home around eight o'clock that night. She arrived back at her apartment with a microwave meal for one and a pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, both purchased with little enthusiasm from the corner bodega along with a mediocre bottle of wine. For a second night in a row, she spent a restless few hours trying to read and relax, and when that failed, she walked the floor of her apartment to work off an excess of nervous energy, pausing every now and then to replay Castle's crackly recording until she had memorized his words and the rhythm of his voice by heart.

Later, much closer to midnight, while she was lying in bed attempting to sleep, she thought she heard a noise out in the living room. She rolled over onto her back and listened for a long time, her body taut, muscles on alert for danger, her hearing attuned for any repeat of the sound she thought she'd heard. Eventually, when it seemed as if she must have imagined it, she turned onto her side and fell into an uneasy, fragmented sleep.

* * *

Castle finished up at _Kramerbooks & Afterwords Café_ around six. Graciously, and with more enthusiasm than he really felt, he thanked everyone for coming out at such short notice. Before he left, he gave special thanks to the assembled bookstore staff, taking time for selfies and signing autographs until all of his fans were sated.

It's often said that men have a one-track mind. Well, Richard Castle's mind had operated on twin tracks that entire afternoon. Since seeing Kate Beckett again, he could think of nothing else, and so he had struggled to focus on the line of eager, smiling faces arriving at the signing table in front of him. Even making polite small talk and signing his own name was a mental strain. He wasn't confused exactly, more like conflicted. He knew that he still loved Kate, but so did she, and she had lied to him about that. The only new information he now had in his possession was her thin explanation as to why she had lied in the first place.

But as the minutes ticked by and the longer he thought about it, he came to the conclusion that maybe it wasn't so thin. He tried to be generous. She had come looking for him after all. And he had never been shot, nor had he lost a parent or a mentor. Aside from some early bullying and the shock of having to raise a baby by himself, Castle had to acknowledge that he had led a pretty charmed life. Even now, the option before him was a good one: Kate had heard his garbled recording and she had run towards him, not away. She had told him she didn't want him to set her free, quite the opposite. She had said that they were nearly there. The questions he had to answer for himself were: was that enough and could he really go through with letting her go if they were on the verge of achieving the relationship he had always wanted? Could he trust her was the bottom line?

On his way back to the Kimpton Hotel, he called his agent, Paula Haas. "Change my train ticket, would you? Paula, please? I need to go home. No, I need to go home tonight."

* * *

When Kate rose the next morning, she put the coffee on to brew and then she went to fetch the newspaper from the hallway. Before she could open the front door, she discovered a buff-colored envelope lying on the wooden floor just inside her vestibule. She bent to pick it up. Turning it over in her hands, looking for any marking or indication where it might have come from, she seized upon the sudden realization that _this_ had been last night's mysterious noise. Someone had slipped the envelope under her door, and that was what she had heard when she had been lying in bed trying to sleep.

Somewhat relieved that she wasn't going crazy, she tore into the envelope as she made her way back to the kitchen.

The vinyl record, in its waxed paper sleeve, slipped out into her hand. There was no longer any mystery as to the identity of her nocturnal visitor. Kate felt sad that her partner hadn't knocked on her door, and then she felt a little relieved, too. Then she felt bad for feeling relieved when she read the handwritten notecard that Castle had slipped inside the record sleeve.

His note read:

 _Kate, I keep messing this up. But the words on this recording are true and from the heart, and I'm glad that you heard them. I made this record for you, so it's right that you should have it. I hope we can get past this, somehow. Castle x_

She placed the note and the recording on the kitchen counter, and then she poured herself a cup of coffee and sank down onto a stool to catch her breath. This had to stop. Something had to change. They couldn't keep doing this kind of damage to one another.

While she showered and picked out clothes to wear, she replayed the content of Castle's note in her head. He had let her off the hook, again, claiming to be the one who had messed up. She had to make him understand that she was the one at fault here, and she had to make it clear that she was willing to take responsibility for all the ways their relationship had slid off track.

' _I hope we can get past this, somehow,'_ was a far tougher sentiment to crack. It reeked of a pragmatic, resigned decision to move on. It chilled her to even imagine him constructing this sentence, let alone putting the words down on paper for her to read.

A good detective, she trusted the evidence, making the calculated assumption that Castle was back in the city if the hand-delivered envelope was any kind of indicator. It was possible, thought highly unlikely, that he had arranged for someone else to slip the vinyl record beneath her door. But she couldn't see it. This had all the hallmarks of her partner – mad at her but unable to stay mad for too long. Besides, he loved her and she believed in him.

She shocked herself, over that first cup of coffee, when she realized that she believed in him more than she had believed in anyone, ever.

As for his sudden return to New York, she had no idea what to make of it – was it scheduled or rescheduled? She found herself hoping for the latter and dressing with more care than usual in any case, or maybe that was _just in case_. He could be busy, he would still be hurt, but it wouldn't hurt for _her_ to look her best if there was any chance that she might run into him that day.

Before she left home, on impulse, she sent him a text message:

 _Thanks for the recording. Wish you'd knocked on my door last night. Would be good to find some time to talk if you're around. I miss you. Kate x_

This message was about as bold as she'd ever got in her written communication with him. She felt a visceral thrill when she pressed send with her heart thumping and her face uncharacteristically warm. It felt like buying a lottery ticket for the Powerball. She just hoped that her odds of winning the jackpot were a whole lot higher.

* * *

The closer she got to the precinct, the more her hope dissolved. Her text message remained unanswered, no typing bubble hovering on Castle's end of their historic iMessage exchange.

By the time she arrived at the precinct, she had convinced herself that all was lost. Her phone was still a dead zone of unanswered messages and one hurriedly aborted phone call. She walked into the lobby feeling as if she was doing the walk of shame; only the shame she felt was of a completely different kind than simply wearing day-old underwear and panda eyes lined with smudged mascara. It was the kind of shame that woke you up in the middle of the night to cower beneath the bed sheets in mortification, berating your own stupidity.

When she got off the elevator, she would have sworn that she could smell the wonderfully rich scent of coffee. She wrote it off as a sense memory, not daring to hope it could be anything else. As she passed the bullpen's wire-mesh enclosure, she imagined she caught a glimpse of thick dark hair, cut in the precise, soft layers she had long-wished to disrupt with her fingers. She wrote this fanciful vision off, too, training her gaze on the floor, forcing herself to get a grip before she drowned in wishful regret with a day of serious work ahead.

But when she finally turned the corner and paused, she had a strong feeling that her whole life was turning a corner, too. If she had any influence over what happened next, that was what would happen. Because she wasn't fantasising at all: Castle was there, sitting right by her desk in his usual seat, a takeout cup of coffee waiting on her blotter as if the last four days had never even happened.

* * *

She found herself speaking softly, almost reverently, when Castle looked up from where his hands were neatly folded in his lap to watch her approaching. "Hey," she said.

"Hey," he replied, politely rising half out of his chair as she drew nearer. He offered her a gentle, lop-sided grin, which quickly turned to concern. "You okay?"

Wordlessly, she nodded while her throat clogged up and her eyes shone damply. "You're here," she said eventually. The disbelief in her voice was unmistakable, as was the profound sense of relief at seeing him again.

"That I am."

Hurriedly, Kate took off her leather jacket and hung it on the back of her chair. Castle watched her every movement. She sank down in front of him and lowered her voice so that no one else could hear.

"Does this mean—" She paused to bite her lip and catch her breath. Unaccustomed to rushing in and feeling so nervous, she reached for the coffee cup to warm her hands and stop them from shaking. "Did you think about what I said?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Castle nodded slowly. His expression was serious and considered. It terrified her.

"And?" she asked, quickly adding, "Why didn't you knock on my door last night?" to forestall his answer to her first question.

Castle's eyebrows shot up. "Honestly?"

Kate nodded. "I think that would help."

"I wasn't ready to see you again," he admitted.

"Okay. That's honest. I understand. And today? You're here now. Should I infer anything from that?"

"You hurt me a lot, Kate," he said.

She almost curled up in shame. "I know, and I am _so_ sorry. Is there any way we can get past this?"

"You know I did a whole book signing on autopilot yesterday. This was all I could think about. _You_ were all I could think about."

"Me, too," Kate admitted.

They were being more honest with one another than they'd ever been before, and in the middle of the bullpen, no less. But somehow, they were only aware of one another. The rest of the world has melted away.

"Castle, I really want to fix this. I meant what I said in my text this morning. I miss you."

Surprisingly, this amused him. "We only saw each other yesterday."

"Yeah, well, things weren't exactly good between us yesterday. The way we left everything…"

"I hate fighting with you, Kate," Castle said, dropping his head into his hands. He raked his fingers through his hair just exactly as Kate had wished to before he looked up again.

"Me, too." She fiddled with the lid of the coffee cup. "So…what do we do now?" she asked, breaking the awkward silence.

Castle took a deep breath. He looked as if he was building up to something big. "What do you say we just take things from here? Clean slate?"

"Did you sleep at all last night?" Kate asked as she studied the dark circles she'd just noticed stamped beneath each eye. They seemed to have stepped over their intimacy boundaries somewhere in the last few days without any discussion. The freedom to speak as she saw was actually very liberating.

Castle leaned in to place a hand on the desk in front of her. He tapped his short nails on the wood to get her attention. "Kate, did you hear what I just said?"

"Take what…things? What does that mean? A clean slate?" she asked. Her heart was hammering so hard that she felt sick.

"It means…whatever you're ready for," he told her calmly. "Whatever you can handle. Partners, friends… I just—"

"Castle, _friends?_ I don't think—" Her voice rose automatically, and then she quelled it, breaking off when the writer interrupted her.

"Kate, just hear me out."

"Castle, no."

He closed his eyes slowly and then reopened them. His voice sounded hoarse. "Please? Stop and think about this for a second," he pleaded, imagining he was hearing, as so often in the past, the worst-case scenario about to play out.

"I've thought about nothing else, believe me," she admitted.

Castle thumped his chest. "This is _my_ fault. That recording…so _stupid._ "

She reached out to touch his arm. "No, Castle. That recording was… _sweet_ and honest. It was great. A real game-changer, in fact."

He eyed her dubiously. "Really?"

Kate nodded. "Mm-hmm. Look, what I'm trying to say is...what if I don't want to wait? _None_ of this is your fault. And I'm not fixed yet, but I don't feel so broken anymore, either. So what if…what if I want to do this? _Us_ , I mean. Try being more than partners, more than just really good friends." She smiled nervously as she raised her eyes to meet his, searching for an answer in his face. "Is that…even an option at this point?" she asked.

Castle did a double take, looking off to the side and back again immediately. It was almost as if he couldn't believe she was sitting there in front of him asking for this, and he had to check. "So you— _Really?_ " He seemed beyond surprised.

She nodded, smiling more broadly at his confusion, which made him look kind of befuddled and adorable. "Rick, I didn't… _don't_ want you to let me go. Not then and not now. I know you love me and that isn't the answer. And this is _not_ me coming back to you because you left." She touched her fingers to her chest. " _I_ never left, Castle. I never left you. Not in here," she said, flattening her hand over her heart. "Not even when I was up at the cabin by myself all those weeks. Not then and not now. You were _always_ here," she said, pressing harder against her sternum, "with me. I'm sorry I didn't make that clear before."

By the time Kate had finished speaking, tears shone in their eyes. As they continued to look at one another, Castle moved closer. He slid his hand under her desk so that he could discreetly lay his fingers on her knee. Kate dropped her hand from her heart and overlaid it with her partner's. The room seemed to shimmer out of focus around them. In that moment, no one and nothing else mattered.

* * *

The boys could tell that something was up. Mom and dad were being too quiet, whispering intimately to each other across Beckett's desk. No one was drinking coffee either, and that was always a sign that something big was going down.

"You guys okay?" Esposito yelled across the room. But his interruption had little effect.

Castle nodded and cleared this throat. "Peachy," he called back without even looking round.

"Can I ask what changed your mind?" Kate leaned even closer to ask.

"You, actually."

She touched her chest. " _Me?_ "

"Yes. _You,_ wanting me back. Coming down to DC after me. It felt like this wasn't a one-sided thing anymore, that I wasn't holding all this hope out by myself. No one's ever done anything like that for me before."

Kate felt sad to hear this. As grand gestures went, a three-hour train ride was a pretty small one. "You know you deserve so much more than that, Castle. I'm going to make sure you get it."

His face lit up and his eyebrows danced. "Sounds...promising."

Kate couldn't help grinning with him as their serious talk morphed into something more playful and flirtatious. "Oh, it will be. You won't know what's hit you once I get started."

"I look forward to that," Castle said. He looked pleased as punch.

Kate smiled softly and squeezed his fingers before withdrawing her hand. "Look…I have this report to write," she said with regret, "and I know we still have to talk… _a lot_ , but after…" She pursed her lips and a beautiful blush crept onto her cheeks.

Castle nodded, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. " _After_ is great. I can make myself scarce or—"

" _Stay!_ " She reached for his hand again and gave it another tug. "Please? I know it's just paperwork." She frowned, earnest all of a sudden not to let him out of her sight. "But would you stay?"

The writer looked genuinely surprised and then delighted. "Sure. Of course. I'd be honored. How about I make us some fresh coffee?"

"That'd be great," she said. Her eyes were twinkling and she looked happier than she had in months. They both did.

As her partner stood, Kate dropped her head and her hair fell forward to partially cover her face. When she looked up again she appeared slightly bashful but also somewhat besotted. The writer was still hovering close by, staring at her mouth as if he badly wanted to kiss her. Kate had to fight the urge to follow him into the break room and close the blinds.

Finally, with some regret, Castle shook himself and turned away.

"Oh, and Castle?" Kate called softly.

He turned back immediately, so much hope in his voice when he said, "Yeah?"

"Thank you. For everything you do for me. You make my life better in ways you'll never know."

He looked surprised by her gratitude and then proud. "You're welcome. It's my pleasure."

"I mean it. You're a good man," she said.

Castle frowned slightly but he nodded anyway.

In the next moment, Kate's expression melted into something altogether more playful. Having finally expressed her thanks to her partner, openly and sincerely for once, there was room for a little flirty suggestion. She had more work to put in, plenty of hurt to make up for, she knew that, but she also relished the opportunity to show him, every day from now on, how deeply she felt about him and just how sorry she really was. There would be no more holding back. She would prove to him that he could trust her.

So she beckoned him closer, dropping her voice, since she was aware that the boys were still trying to listen in to their conversation. "Now, if you were to be a _naughty_ man later," she whispered, arching her eyebrows suggestively, "I might even sing for you. You do like it when I sing, I believe. I'm sure a private performance could be arranged. I particularly like to sing in the shower," she said, miraculously managing to keep a straight face while Castle's eyes grew saucer-wide.

Not for the first time, Castle was _seriously_ glad that Kate had listened to his rambling, uncensored recording. His body flushed with heat as he allowed himself to experience the desire for his partner that he'd long been forced to suppress. He ached to touch her, to kiss her lips, to run his fingers through her hair. A thousand fantasies flooded his feverishly turned on brain all at once, and then he winked at her. "You got yourself a deal, detective. Better hurry up with that paperwork," he said, giving her a pointedly heated look.

He watched with pleasure as a rosy blush of arousal climbed his partner's neck and warmed her cheeks. She looked delightfully flustered for once.

"Yeah, we _really_ need to get out of here," Kate agreed, her eyes flashing.

She rose suddenly from her chair, and before Castle could ask what was going on, Kate grabbed him by the hand and dragged him off across the bullpen towards the nearest stairwell.

The last anyone heard was a high-pitched squeal followed by some crazy laughter before the partners disappeared from view and the fire door slammed shut.

 _The End_

* * *

 _Thank you for reading and for your kind reviews along the way. When you enjoy a story, your comments are what make the hours of work worthwhile._


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